How a Canadian socialite came to admit the manslaughter of a police officer on the luxury holiday island of Belize
Jasmine Hartin, a Canadian socialite and luxury real estate developer, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter by negligence in court in Belize over the shooting of a police officer.
Hartin, 34, formerly the partner of the son of British billionaire Lord Ashcroft, who was previously deputy chair of the Conservative Party, was arrested and charged with the manslaughter of Henry Jemmott, 42, in late May 2021.
Speaking outside Belize City’s Supreme Court on Wednesday, Hartin said: “I just want Henry’s family to have peace now and I want this whole thing behind all of us so we can heal.”
Her sentencing hearing is set for 31 May and her lawyer, Orson “OJ” Elrington, has said he expects Judge Ricardo Sandcroft to hand down a non-custodial sentence in light of Hartin’s guilty plea, which might involve a fine or compensation payment to the bereaved family.
Here’s what we know about how the case unfolded.
Thursday 27 May 2021
Jasmine Hartin and her partner Andrew Ashcroft are invited over to the oceanfront apartment of their friend and neighbour, police superintendent Henry Jemmott, in the Belizean town of San Pedro on the holiday island of Ambergris Caye. Mr Ashcroft declines so Hartin goes alone, taking a bottle of wine and a music player.
Hartin and Jemmott drink cinnamon whisky together on his balcony, she subsequently says, before violating the coronavirus restrictions then in place by ignoring a 10pm curfew and taking a walk on the waterfront late at night to admire the moonlight, at which point Jemmott asks Hartin to massage his sore shoulder, having sustained a minor injury while fishing.
According to Hartin, at around 12.45am, Jemmott encouraged her to handle his 9mm Glock-17 pistol in order to show her how to load it. The gun accidentally goes off when she hands it back to him, causing the father-of-five to suffer a bullet wound behind the ear.
He dies of his injury, his body slumping into the sea.
Friday 28 May 2021
The body of Superintendent Jemmott is recovered from the water in the early hours of the morning.
Police commissioner Chester C Williams tells local media that security guards had come running to the scene after hearing a single gunshot and “upon investigating, police found the female on a pier and she had what appeared to be blood on her arms and on her clothing”.
He also reports that officers had recovered Jemmott’s firearm nearby.
Monday 31 May 2021
Hartin is arrested after the weekend, charged with manslaughter by negligence and denied bail, according to her lawyer Godfrey Smith.
Jemmott’s family are forced to deny local media speculation that his gunshot wound was self-inflicted.
Saturday 11 June 2022
Hartin gives an extensive interview to The Times in which she recounts the events of the night in question and denies being romantically involved with Jemmott.
On why she had handled Jemmott’s handgun, she told the newspaper: “He said he thought I needed my licence to get a weapon for protection. He handed me the clip. I unloaded it and reloaded the bullets.
“After I unloaded it a few times, he took the bullets in his hands and he set them down on the pier. I put the empty weapon I thought was safe down beside me.
“At some point he said, ‘Let’s head back inside – hand me the magazine so I can refill it quickly’. I picked it up, I’m holding it, and the next thing I know, it’s going off.
“He fell down on top of me, I can feel blood, I am panicking, I am trying to wriggle out from under him, he began slipping into the water, so I tried to grab him... under his arms and I couldn’t. He was a very big guy, huge.”
She continued: “A man comes out of nowhere, I am trying to call the police, he comes up to me, doesn’t say a word, picks up the gun and walks away.
“I yelled at the security who were coming down, ‘Stop this man, he is taking evidence from the crime scene’ – at this point I don’t even know if Henry is alive.
“They brought me to a wall. They said they found Henry, I asked if he was OK, and that’s when I found out he was dead. It didn’t seem real. They brought me to the police station, they photographed me, they didn’t take any alcohol level, they didn’t test me. I’d only had, like, two glasses of wine over a few hours.”
She also recounted her treatment in jail, the disintegration of her relationship with Mr Ashcroft and subsequent bitter custody battle over their two children and reflected on her impoverished childhood in rural Ontario.
Sunday 19 June 2022
Hartin gave another interview, this time to Piers Morgan for his TalkTV special “Death on the Dock”, in which she again recounted the events of that night with Jemmott.
“I don’t ever remember touching the trigger of the weapon, but I was holding it when it went off,” she told Morgan. “I’m not sure if it was a faulty weapon or not. I really can’t tell you how it went off.”
She recalled the moment when it fired, however, commenting: “It was a loud bang. Then my ears were ringing, I was in shock.
“It was a horrible night that changed everyone’s lives. I have to live with that for the rest of my life.”
Saturday 30 July 2022
In a further interview with CBS News’s 48 Hours, Hartin again relived the saga in exhaustive detail, telling the programme the incident was a “horrible accident”.
“I’ve been through what I would consider hell on earth,” she said.
Cherry Jemmott, the deceased’s sister and also a police officer, insisted in the same programme that she did not believe Hartin’s account of her brother’s final moments.
“My brother would never do a thing like that when it comes to a firearm. He is so skillful, and he is so careful,” she said.
Of Hartin, Officer Jemmott insisted she “should be charged for murder and not manslaughter”.
Wednesday 26 April 2023
Hartin entered her guilty plea to the manslaughter by negligence charge at the Supreme Court in Belize City.
Mr Elrington told reporters his client’s primary concern “was to not put the family of the victim through the anguish of having to go through a trial proceeding. She consistently expressed her concern about that.”
